Cloak & Dagger Games

Many are the secrets and dire mysteries of the Rogue Isles, the place I call home these days, in fact it might be almost accurate to call it all a huge game of cloak and dagger - of course some play this game better than others, and amongst the very elite are the Malta Group - that shadowy organization made up of malcontents from the intelligence communities of the world, a hard-core gathering of operatives who believe that meta-humans should be subjugated and used to fight the shadow wars that play out in the folds of the robe of everyday life.
I had a run-in with a cell of them a little while ago, and have been able to reproduce the survelliance and video files from some of the encounters that make up that run-in - of course, had it not been for the assistance rendered by Johnny Buzz, our in-house data-expert and all-star hacker, the data would probably have been lost in the Malta Group's aggressive scouring of the net and their desire to keep their activities a secret.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
Source: Arachnos Sureveillance
Time: 21:00 hours zulu time
Subject: Malta Group (cross ref: Rhinioxx, Titan Project)
Transcript:
[backup video systems coming online - video recording focuses from white noise to regular picture feed - 8 black clad people in military style fatigues have appeared in hallway - hacking suspected]

A man clad in black military fatigues and sporting a stetson-style hat (1) is gesturing towards the rest of the intruders. Identified as Malta Group Gunslinger.

VOICE (1): Spread out and gather the information we want - Omicron Alpha-2 assures me that we are shielded from detection for another 15.28 minutes! Move it!

[loud booming noises in background - sounds like metal being beated - seemingly agitating the intruders]

VOICE (1): Prepare to repel attack - Engineer Theta-21a(2) and Alpha-234c(3) setup sentinels! Sapper ready your wep-sys in case of Meta-Human interferrence!

[2 of the intruders hurriedly unpacks what appears to be a transportable gun-system from their backpacks - whirring as servos kicks in and ammo rolls into the guns from the drumrolls]

[Crashing noise of metal - whole picture shutters - debris flying by, hitting one of the intruders who goes down in a shower of blood. Battle-armour clad person stomping by Camera 213az-tellion - identified as Rhinoxx (4) - loud-pitched noise emitting identified as battle-cry sonic attack originating from battle-armour of (4)]

VOICE (4): Come out and play Kingdom Red 1-0-1 (1?) - I know you and your cronies are here! We need to settle at little debt you owe me for dumping those doctored files on me into the lap of Arbiter Zacharias!!! (ref Arachnos Arbiter omega-z1231). Do you have any idea how hard it is to escape that sort of scrutiny?

VOICE (1): Dammit - I thought the spider-boys would have dealt with him by now - Engineer Alpha-234c abandon post and penetrate deeper into the base for Titan activation!!! We will hold this meta-human creep!!

VOICE (3): Yessir! Commencing sequence now!

[(3) leaves the camera coverage - huge humanoid shape (4) moves past primary camera at blurred speed - screams and gunfire follow - primary camera is splashed with dark substance (most likely blood) then explodes in a gunfire strafing.]

[Tertiary survelliance systems coming online - security alert still not transmitted - internal defense systems offline - hallway is now an inferno of fire, blood, debris, shellcasings and torn bodies - (1) and (4) are fighting amidst the chaos, (1) appearing to use some sort of personal teleportation system to blink around (4) while discharging guns akimbo-style - both display signs of damage]

VOICE (1): Give it up Rhinoxx! We have more tricks up our sleeve than just framing you for the Aeon Lab job!!! (Ref Aeon Lab Breakin 21-9-zetha) Surrender and you get a nice control collar and the chance to do something right you Meta-Human Scum - if not Dreadnought Red 5-6-5 will deal with ...

[voice of (1) interrupted as (4) rips out a part of the wall and hits (1) square in the face with the jagged piece of metal]

VOICE (4): Give it up eh? How about you just eat some floor cowboy? [laughter]

[rumbling in background - metallic booms sounding like steps - part of wall exploding outwards - large metallic construct (5) errupts through ruined wall and scorches area occupied by (4) a moment earlier with laser impulse canon - identified as Malta Zeus Class Titan]

VOICE (5): Your extermination is at hand Meta-Human - surrender is no longer an option!!! The armoured fist of the Malta Group is reaching for you!!!

[Laser fire from Titan almost white-outs the surveillance cameras - (4) and (5) exchanges tremendous blows that make the walls shake and destroys the audio system]

[(4) manages to deal (5) a series of blows that appears to stun the titan's battle systems and allowing (4) to rip the primary cannon arm off (5) and crush its head and chest area with it - (5) falls to the floor once again making the walls shake - (4) stomps outside of camera range]

//Transcript ends

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
Having dealt with Kingdom Red 1-0-1 (what is it with the Malta bosses and their need to have these James Bondesque names?) I brought the datacore from the titan back to HQ along with some holo-plates I had found on the operatives - fortunately Doctor Mandible was able to extract some useful information from them.

It appeared that the strike against the Aeon Lab in Cap au Diable wasn't just a random strike against Arachnos - rather they had stolen the blueprints to a next-generation powersource that would allow them to activate a series of Kronos Class Titans they had secretly been constructing in Warburg. Guess they should have blamed someone other than me and their little scheme might have succeeded.
Still - Kronos Class Titans could be a serious threat to the stability of my adopted home. Knowing that they were designed to battle the Freedom Phalanx and other high-powered supergroups, they are serious military-grade hardware.

Knowing that such a facility would be heavily manned and guarded, not to mention the danger of the Malta Group having already activated whatever number of Kronos Titans they had available, I sent word to the underground network and recruited a number of powerful villains who saw eye to eye with me on this topic - alongside Dark Cobalt and Horus Priest (our resident atomic woman and egyptian para-god respectively) from the Seventh Cabal.

We did a very successful strike against the Titan Facility - it turned out that the mad Arachnos renegades in Warburg had actually allowed them to create a titan factory. Having waded through endless hordes of Malta Operatives and Titans we penetrated the factory proper and managed to deactivate four of the five!!! Kronos Class Titans we found there on a permanent basis.
Unfortunately the Malta Engineers managed to power up the fifth unit and an epic battle followed as our fight tore through the factory, demolishing all before us and finally spilling into Warburg itself.

Had we been just delayed a bit longer the monstrous robot might have had time to start all of it's weapon systems and charge to full power, but as it was, the fight was still incredibly hard and I hope I never have to encounter one of these monsters in full battlemode.

In the end we prevailed and sealed the whole deal by diverting one of the Warburg missiles and detonating it over the Malta facility - burning it from the face of the earth.
Now I just have to find a way to finance the extensive repairs to my battle-armour - but I am betting that the Malta Group will be interested in buying back the blue prints I leeched from the facility mainframe - and if not them, then Crey probably will be.

Sometimes, it's just great to be a villain - but most of the time, it rocks!

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

Get your Freak on!!!

Many things are alike when you compare The City and the sprawling web of misery and violence that is the Rogue Isles - heroes, villains, some sort of not-so-effective police force, places to rob and of course the ever present gangs which consists of all manners of meta-humans, mutants, soldier-types and freaks.
Indeed many of the same gangs are present in both places - some because they are widespread organizations such as The Council, the Family and the Malta Group (just to mention a few) and others because they want to carve a future for themselves away from the established regime.

Such is the case with the Freakshow - the cybernetic enhancement cult feared by common citizens and heroes alike in The City; and I do mean cult - they might be organized like a gang, committing roberies, acts of wanton destruction and stealing high-tech shipments from anywhere they can find - but the underlying purpose is always to finance their obsession with enhancing their bodies with cybernetic implants and becoming more machine than men.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
The Freakshow you can encounter on the Rogue Isles are probably the equivalent of a "splinter cell" - if by splinter cell we understand a bunch of people far away from the force that normally beats them into submission so they can act like rebellious teenagers; in this case, the non-presence of Dreck means that the Freaks are under no particular control and are evolving into a stand-alone faction. This is further complicated by the addition of new members to the Freakshow cult who have never been to Paragon City and never been under the iron fist of Dreck's rule and have a hard time seeing why they should obey a guy they've never seen when the credo of the Freakshow is unlimited freedom.
Ah - you gotta love how anarchy have a way of eating it's own tail.

At any rate - you can always count on the Freakshow to put on a great fight no matter where you encounter them - with all their hooks, claws and regime of combat drugs these boys are ready to give as good as they get, and if you don't watch out, you might be the one needing limb replacement after a scrap with them. The massive Tank Freaks, the nasty Swipers, the Smashers and the Stunners - even the regular thugs that haven't made enough of a name for themselves to get implants - they are all tough opponents and with the drugs in their system, you better make sure they are down before you turn your back on them if you don't want a fistfull of sharp, rusty metal in it - i've seen more than one Freak rise from a beating that have killed other men.
They might not be the smartest boys on the block, but you have to respect their mad dedication to their ideals and their drive to cause mayhem and destruction - and have a good time while doing it.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
Ah yes, but given the Freakshows desire to explore "self-improvement" it is hardly surprising that they fall in with all sorts of people here on the Rogue Isles. It's common knowledge they have formed an alliance with the renegade servants of Doctor Vahzilok known as "Meat Doctors" who assist them with their crazed cybernetic implant fixation - and in return get a host of willing test-subjects for all their mad experiments.
But I recently ran across another a new branch of their search for new ways to alter themselves - a branch of the Sharkhead chapter had somehow come into contact with an ancient representative of the Coralax species (the same semi-coral creatures native to the Rogue Isles waters) and entered into something called "The Cult of the Shaper." I stumbled upon it by accident but have since then devoted some time and effort into stamping this cult out.

If the result is magically enhanced Freaks burning with the energy of the mystic Red Corals and who effectively become living metal and almost impossible to damage, that is something I want to see an end to.
I had a run-in with one of their priests and that is not something I wish to repeat anytime soon - liquid metal flowing to repair damaged areas, swirls of black magic energy surrounding them, capable of calling up Slag Golems to assist them in addition to their regular features of horrible strength and lethal mechanical limbs.

At least I was able to eliminate the cult part I found and with the cave-in I caused afterwards, their secrets should be safe. But the investigation will continue - there are just some things even a villain don't want to see walking the earth.

The Beast Beneath the Mountain

Sometimes, they say, truth is stranger than fiction. On the Rogue Isles I've found this to be the general state of affairs rather than a sometime occurrence - after all, we exist in a sovereign state where daemoniac magicians and occult circus artistes rub shoulders with steam-punk soldiers and cybernetically enhanced freaks - the strange is more commonplace than the normal.

In this particular case it all began with a broker calling himself Virgil Tarikoss. He had contacted some of the lower ranking members of the Seventh Cabal and hinted that he had an assignment that would prove most profitable for all parties involved as well as grant us more power. Having discussed it in the Circle of Tyrants we decided to green-flag the enterprise and see what Tarikoss might be able to give us.
First we had to prove ourselves to him and assault a hideout belonging to the Legacy Chain and break up one of their rituals. Hardly problematic and we cut through the occult fools like a sacrificial knife through the throat of a Thorn victim.
Tarikoss began to reveal the layout of his scheme to us and it required we clash with more minions of the Legacy Chain as well as seek out the Circle of Thorns in their cyclopean lairs. During these raids we began to piece together an idea of what was going on based on information given to us by Tarikoss and - it seemed that in the 18th century, a Jesuit priest called Padre Henri, told about a great demon called Bat'Zul that once dwelt in the volcano after being summoned by desperate cultists. He imprisoned the demon beneath the mountain that gives Cap au Diable it's name and now after it's long imprisonment it was finally breaking loose of it's bond as Dr Aeon's geothermal experiments had accidentally tapped into the fiend drawing tremendous power from it, and weakening the seals that kept it bound.
This last part didn't ring true but Tarikoss insisted this was the way it was. Of course he couldn't have known that I had run a few black-ops for Marshall Brass some time ago, where I had discovered that Dr Aeon was fully aware of what he was doing - there was nothing accidental about his experiments - and that Cap au Diable was actually being powered by demonic energy rather than geothermal power.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
But I went along with the games and kept my eyes on Tarikoss. As the whole thing was thundering towards it's conclusion we had to make a surgical strike against a Thorn Coven which were trying to take control of Bat'Zul so that they would direct it when it broke free of it's binding spells.

As we prepared to descend into the dark beneath the mountain, to rebind Bat'Zul and divert part of it's majestic power to ourselves, Tarikoss informed us that the Legacy Chain had beat us to the punch and brought in the Hero Infernal from The City to assist them in binding and neutralizing Bat'Zul.

We clashed with Infernal and his honour guard of Legacy Chain in the entrance to the lair of Bat'Zul - but somehow the Hero didn't seem to be at full strength - something we capitalized on straight away. Having crushed the Hero and his retinue, we continued into the underworld lair of Bat'Zul - the presence of the creature warping the whole place partly out of this world and transforming it into a small slice of the fiery hell from which Bat'Zul had originally crawled.

Needing to break the remaining intact sigils before we could rebind the beast, we waded through a horde of the demon's avatars - giant two-legged creatures that were all hunger and gaping maws .... although I kept getting an urge for KFC-style chicken legs while fighting them for some reason ...

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
Although the shrieking avatars of Bat'Zul were frightful opponents, they were as children as opposed to the horrid demon when it rose from the lava lake in the middle of its underworld domain - it took all of our resources and powers to fight off the creature. The place had the screams of henchmen, the searing light of radioactive blasts, gunfire and general sounds of combat and suffering added to the already existing cacophony of roaring fire and shrieking demons.

Finally we managed to lure Bat'Zul away from the lava lake - which seemed to rob it of some of it's power - and then in a final ditch effort we managed to bind it once again and topple it into the fiery lake - forever bound!

But we had been deceived! No measure of demonic power came our way and in the end it turned out that Tarikoss had been a Hero masquerading as a broker to lure a bunch of villains to do his bidding and prevent the evil of Bat'Zul from rising - we were apparently going to be sucked into the fiery private hell of Bat'Zul when it was rebound, but fortunately this failed.
If only Tarikoss hadn't managed to escape and leaving us looking like fools - but then again, I have sent word to a few old contacts back in The City - sweet girls working for the Knives of Artemis, and given promise of a sizable bonus if they can locate Tarikoss and deliver him to me either dead or living.

Ah well - I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we managed to stand up to a monstrous creature and come out of it alive and uncooked - evil will have it's way some other day.

Villainy & The City

Sometimes I find my thoughts drifting back to my younger days, when I was just a bad little kid in Paragon City - mostly because the mind needs something to do while the body is being repaired and retrofitted with cybernetic enhancements after the latest battle for supremacy and loot across the Rogue Isles.
I especially recall my math teacher always berating me for not doing my homework and telling me I would never amount to anything if I didn't know my numbers, that I would never know if my partners in crime was ripping me off if I couldnt subtract and divide. Well - of course he was partially right - in the case of people ripping one off it's really a matter of management through fear; if they know what you are going to do to them if they are found out, they will usually keep their hands inside the vehicle while the ride is moving ... and if not, well, they don't call it a life of crime because it's led by nice people now do they?

But back to the subject on my math teacher - I recall him rather vividly at the moment as I just met him while doing a tour of Peregrine Island - screaming rather loudly just before I stomped my enhanced cyber-hoof into the pavement of the parking lot where he was sitting in his car. I rather assume that the ensuing explosions and fiery inferno put an end to any further screaming.
And I totally swear I did it to loose that mob of Longbows I had on my heals .... mostly to loose them .... well, in part then - at any rate, subtract that from your sum totals!

Back in The City
And the reason I was back in The City and visiting Peregrine Island? Well as a senior freelancer for Arachnos, you can sometimes call in a few favours - in this case, my broker in Grandville offered me the chance to take a bit of chaos to the home of Heroes. An Arachnos Flier would take me right smack into the middle of the island and a groundcrew would lay down some suppressing fire while I infiltrated the island city, caused some chaos and destruction and robbed the branch of Paragon City Bank, which had some interesting documents in their vault from a certain Russian scientist defector of the former Soviet PSIforce Programme.

Making a SMASH on the evening news
Who am I to refuse an opportunity like that? It was deeply satisfying to return to Paragon City - when I left I was nothing more than a meta-human bully, but now as a full-blown Brute with my powers fully developed, sporting advanced combat armour and a ready regime of combat drugs at my fingertips - I'm the embodiment of what the the Heroes of The City fear to be called out to fight.

They don't make 'em like they used to

It was an excellent afternoon - I rolled through downtown Peregrine like a battletank. I have to admit that the PPD have grown more sofisticated - better equipment, specialized suppression&contaiment squads and even some heavy-handed help in the form of Peacebringer-infested police officers and exo-armour enhanced troopers toting the latest in laser-assault technology.
Good thing I let Doctor Mandible convince me to add that instant replay system to my battlearmour that allows me to watch combat-video footage post-fight - makes it easier to appreciate the scope of things and also spot any techniques that need improvement or even special enemy weaknesses.

At any rate, while I was walking through a grid of laser-fire and PPD assaults and giving it out much harder than I was receiving it, Longbow decided to make an appearance - all adding to the fun - although I am surprised that their field commander decided to bring out the regular footsoldiers for an enemy of my obvious Threat Level - I was fully expecting the Longbow Ballista-1 Units and not the spandex brigade.

Not that I'm complaining of course, it made my job a whole lot easier that they totally underestimated the threat I was - which might also have been facilitated in part by me not leaving anyone breathing after a fight, so there was noone to radio back for better reinforcements. Even so, you would think that SOMEONE would take note that they suddenly lost radio contact with 30-40 trained officers given that they knew an Arachnos threat was present?

Ah - but at the end it didn't really matter - I always knew I was going to make ti to the bank, rip the vault out and get the papers I was sent there for. In fact it was almost a deja-vu, seeing as I did almost the exact thing when I started out in the Rogue Isles where I pulled a job on the bank in Port Oakes with almost the same objective. Of course, back then I didn't have the unexpected pleasure of being confronted by a Hero at the end. He looked the part too - spandex, flowing cape, wielding an assortment of mind-confusing powers and calling up illusions - I even think he yelled "cease and desist villain!"

You have to admire old school heroism like that - I'm pretty sure the doctors will be able to make him walk again.

Having secured the papers from the vault, I made my exit, got back to the Arachnos Fliers and got air-lifted out of the hot zone. All said and done a pretty good day - I even got on the Paragon News! I think they got some pretty good footage of me to.

Paragon City - where it sometimes hurt A LOT to be a Hero.

Getting to the goodies

5th Column Rising?

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Some things never change

One from the archives - Journal Entry 06-07-22-13 or as I like to call it "Some things never change"

Smart people tell us that there are only a few constants in this universe - as one of my associates from Paragon City used to say "Everything freeeeeezes" ... which of course turned out to be only too true for him when a Hero breached his cryogenic weapon system during a battle; the poor guy shattered like a chunk of ice someone hammered with an icepick.
Anyway, back to the constants. Apart from the well-known constants like death and taxes, in my experience there is one more you can always count on: there are assholes everywhere!

In this case I am thinking of a very specific bunch of of them - the Crey Corporation, or Crey as they are commonly known.
I've taken assignments from just as many villain groups as I've fought against; that's one of the things you learn fairly quickly on the Rogue Isles - never think that the enemy you are fighting today can't be the employer your are taking assignments from tomorrow - and vice verse.
However, in my case this NEVER applies in the case of the Crey. Those bastards have double- and triple-crossed me - even at times when I never even knew they had an active part in activities I was involved in.

Taking a regular mega-corporation with all it's built-in greed and lack of respect for people and crowning it with the uninhibited greed, petty mindedness and lack of morals of a super-villain organization is a match made in hell. Lawyers with meta-human backup - it rivals any evil that could come out of the bio-engineered hives of the Devouring Earth or the dystopian catacombs of the Circle of Thorns.

Some weeks ago I undertook a series of assignments from a new broker who called himself Wainwright. He offered above-average pay and there were excellent "salvaging opportunities" along the way, as well as some good opportunities to crack some Malta Group heads, as Wainwright seemed to have a beef with them.
I never knew nor suspected that the Crey were involved until the moment I delivered a box with Titan AI controller-chips to Wainwright and I got jumped by a gang of Crey Power Tanks the second he said he would "no longer be requiring my services for this project." I think the jokers were expecting to knock me out like some rookie and drag me back to some Crey station for shipment to Project Revenant (the Crey "recycling" program that results in the Paragon Protectors). Of course being a Power Tank might be enough to frighten the Heroes and Villains back in The City, but it doesn't impress me one bit - and with all that fancy, heavy body armour they are particularly vulnerable to a certain Brute stomping his foot into the ground with enough force to quake an entire street and send Crey lackeys and pieces of concrete flying everywhere. While they were trying to pick themselves up, I stomped them into the ground and made myself some instant canned Crey - unfortunately Mr. Wainwright managed to escape during the melee.

Not that this did him much good of course - having some ex-Crey employees in the Seventh Cabal as well as access to some heavyweight hackers meant that locating a number of possible bolt-holes weren't all that difficult.
It just took a few raids and overturned Crey stations before I ran into Mr Wainwright again - this time wearing his Crey Tank Armour - and I of course took the time to kindly explain that I took a dim view on being treated this way by the Crey and requested (in all modesty of course) that they refrain from doing so again. A point of view which they seemed to respect.

... of course, I cannot be entirely sure what with the whole places going up in flames, smoke obscuring everything and collapsed walls and ceilings all over the place.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

Scream for me!

One from the archives - Journal Entry 06-04-02-13 or as I like to call it "Scream for me!"
Anyone who have ever visited St. Martial will probably either have seen or run across the obnoxious little demons known as Wailer Demons. Despite their diminutive size they can cause considerable discomfort and even physical damage with their high-pitched shrieks, which is also their main offensive weapon even though their scythe-like arms are also wickedly sharp.

I once took a series of assignments from a contact codenamed Hardcase who has his base of operations in St. Martial and deals with all manners of supernatural entities but who has specialized knowledge on the subject of demons.
The pay was good and ever since I enjoyed the hospitality of the Circle of Thorns, I've been especially adept at handling the forces of the supernatural (at least that is one good thing that came out of my lenghty stay in their crystal prisons - who knew I had the ability to absorb ambient energy and use it to strengthen my own powers?) I took the assignments Hardcase handed out. Unlike many other contacts and brokers I've dealt with during my time on the Rogue Isles, Hardcase was a brutally effective man who knew his subject matter and could actually provide me with useful intel before and after each assignment.

The Wailer Demons featured heavily in the assignments, sometimes even surprisingly so, and a picture began to form suggesting that the little pests weren't as demented as they led on. They were here to collect a soul which had been promised to them, but massive magical countermeasures had been built into a number of structures on the island, which directed the flow of supernatural energy away, weakening the creatures and in many ways they were acting like people deprived of water over a lenghty period of time because of that.

The assignments almost turned into an epic saga, and it was clear that strange things was going on in the shadows of St. Martial - even stranger than you would expect! Johnny Sonata, the powerful Capo running the better part of the island was in to his eyeballs in all of this, and it turned out that the rumours were true: he HAD in fact sold his soul for his marvellous vocal abilities. The Wailer Demons were merely here to collect, and expecting them, Johnny had fortified parts of the island to disrupt their power, confuse them and generally lead them away from him. Only problem was, that robbed of their real target, the demons were running amok and targeting anything that got in their way - and even worse, help was coming!

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo
Hardcase ran the magical numbers on this and located a massive surge in demonic power beneath the city. Something had materialized and it would be really bad for business if this "something" was to erupt unto the island surface.

Venturing into the dark beneath the world, otherwise known as the sewer system, I waded through a sea of Wailer Demons, until finally, dripping with demonic ichor, I came upon our "something"; A Wailer Lord, a massive demon glowing with supernatural energy, it's shrieks demolishing walls and sewer pipes as it made it's way towards the surface.
Fortunately, powerful as the Wailer Lord was, it was not yet fully adjusted to our plane of existence and as such it was not at full strength. Even so the fight to take their creature down was fierce, and rocked that part of the sewer system, leaving most of it in ruin and I swear my ears were ringing for days afterwards.

Of course, in the end the Wailer Lord was stomped into the ground beneath my boot and dispelled from this plane - it's corpse made for a nice treat to barter with a certain Mage I have done business with in the past, and apart from a good workout, this last assignment for Hardcase proved quite profitable: Beating the crap out of a bunch of demons and good loot - what more can you ask for?

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

A place to call our own

Sometimes I think about the "good old days," which of course weren't all that good - but time has a tendency to soften the jagged edges ... well, at least the bleeding stops.
Back before I was transported to the Rogue Isles, I enjoyed the hospitality of The Zig along with numerous other shady characters who shared the misfortune of having run across the "heroes" of Paragon City.

I was kept in a section of The Zig designed to hold those inmates who's powers were mostly physical in nature, what they refer to as "Brutes", meaning that most of us could rip apart a car with our bare hands. During my imprisonment I had formed an alliance with two other Brutes, my fellow Mutant Crock who also came from a gangland background, and the technologically enhanced Stomparr who once was a part of the Crey Tank squads. The three of us stuck together, we respected each other and were very aware of the fact, that he who stands alone have no-one to watch his back, and that is the certain ticket to the morgue.

We stuck together during the jail break from The Zig and it soon became apparent that the jail break had been constructed as a trial - to see who were ruthless enough to secure a place on a flier and a ticket to freedom, when the opposition was hundreds of hardened, super-powered inmates who all had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Landing on Mercy Island, it was soon all to clear that that was only the first trial - now the weeding of the weak from the strong would begin in earnest.

The three of us swore to survive the meat grinder of Mercy Island and made our covenant right there - swearing allegiance to each other and to our successful rise to power.
We battled our way across the hellhole that is Mercy Island and eventually earned our passage to the next stage of the trial, the more civilized Port Oakes - "civilized" meaning that the gangs ran the show and when people were killed it was by design, and not just because some lunatic had been drinking the bio hazardous waste-water of Mercy and gone on a killing spree.

But civilized also meant new opportunities, computer interfaces, access to our old network of contacts who could supply us with the merchandise we needed ... for a cut of the profits, goes without saying. We undertook contracts from shady brokers, sold black market salvage, blueprints, technological spare parts and anything else we could find to finance our work.

Our breakthrough came when Stomparr managed to hack a Crey mainframe during a raid on a Crey station, and discovered a small underground base which could easily be overrun – the location and existence of which was subsequently burned from the Crey Network. A new home was found – a place to stage operations, to gather salvage, to rest and feel relatively secure.

We had to sink a considerable amount of our loot into making the station operational again, as the battle to rid it of its Crey personnel hadn't exactly been peaceful, but it was all worth it.
Maybe it wasn't good days, but they were good enough - and I still remember the feeling of satisfaction when I sat down after our new base had been overhauled and put into a servicable state again. Everything was clean, gleaming and new.
Sitting on the teleporter pad with the weird energies of the teleporter beam crackling behind me and our future in front of me. It felt like victory then and it still does.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

My favourite Nemesis

Ah the neverending demands of the Arachnos group - don't they realise that we have people to maul, riches to rob, plots to plan? Having failed to deliver on the vague promise that was given when I arrived at the Rogue Isles - that I would be a "Chosen One" and inducted into an elite echelon of Lord Recluse's organization - my need for them is on the vane. Granted, the Rogue Isles are an excellent haven for the activities of the Seventh Cabal, but really, there are many small regimes on the face of the Earth who would offer the same terms given the amount of cash we have to pay for the privillege of being here.

But I digress - every now and then we are called upon to do some manner of service for Arachnos - maybe it's some sort of prolonged test, but it reeks of plain manual labour. In my case, I have long since stopped answering to the lower ranks of Arachnos or taken any sort of orders from them. My point of contact these days are Black Scorpion himself, who is functioning as my Patron and ally. A loathsome business it has turned out to be, as Black Scorpion is a narrow-minded, paranoid, insecure little man who wouldn't be so tough without that stolen armour system of his. He strikes out at everyone and always defaults to brute force, even when it is abundantly clear that less is more.

But the other day he needed assistance - I had been unravelling a Nemesis operation for some weeks and it turned out that the Prussian Prince of Automatons was planning a major assault on Grandville and I had uncovered the evidence of this just in the nick of time. Lord Recluse had of course ordered his Lieutenants to deal with the situation - a wise move, since an invasion from Nemesis is hardly the thing you ask the rank and file to handle if you want to come out on top.
But Black Scorpion called for assistance - although I got the impression that it was more a matter of demonstrating to his rival Lieutenants that he had powerful allies of his own.

Having done all the investigative work myself - and pocketed some interesting Nemesis prototypes and parts that sold for a small fortune on the black market in the process - I didn't mind showing up for the final showdown.

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Nemesis, now THERE is an Arch-Villain I wouldn't mind working for. He obviously have the determination, the intellect, the resources and the know-how. He fields an army of disciplined and fiercely loyal soldiers alongside a horde of mechanical constructs, war-machines and replicas of himself - the so-called "Fake Nemesis". The latter are powerful automatons which displays a vast array of the powers Lord Nemesis is said to possess, and of course an enemy of the Prussian Prince never knows if he is facing an automaton or the real deal - it's genius.

The invasion was headed by a series of Mole Machines, the likes of which I haven't seen before anywhere in my frequent clashes with the forces of Nemesis - but I would very much like to lay my hands on the blueprints as I know of a couple of groups who would pay a king's ransom for those.
A huge landing force was pouring from the machines as I landed on the beaches of Grandville and I must say it was no easy fight - indeed it could have gone either way for a long while.
But of course, in the end I and the rest of the Arachnos forces prevailed against the forces of Nemesis.

But the sheer organization and attitude of the man - to attack Grandville itself, and from what I have seen during my prolonged investigation into the Nemesis Army, this wasn't even for real - it was just a fieldtest to see what would happen.

Hard not to speculate if Nemesis might have a need for freelancers ....

Stomparr lives!!!

Johnny Buzz has been doing a bit of poking around the Arachnos Surveilance Systems - it seems it is even bigger and more widespread than we initially thought, and also largely automated; Buzz thinks it's unlikely that there are any human operatives actually monitoring all this data, but suspects that OrbWeaver One may have constructed automatons to handle the information analysis.
At any rate, this means we can continue leaching small amounts of data without having to worry about direct human-controlled counter-measures ... which is a good thing, as these bases are expensive enough without having to shell out for replacements and repairs after a visit from an Arachnos Punishment Details a.k.a. The Pain Squad.

But back to the actual matter of interest: Last night Buzz came across a system that appears to be separated from the rest of the network, and which apparently contains surveillance from mobile units located in the mysterious Shadow Shard dimension. Good work too, as I know now that our old comrade-in-arms Stomparr isn't dead or entirely missing anymore - he is merely working for Arachnos in that strage and remote place, and from the looks of it, I would say he appears to have been attached to some of their elite recon forces.

Stomparr disappeared one night alongside Emergency, another high-ranking member of the Seventh Cabal, on what should have been a routine "aquisition mission" and we have never been able to find out what happened until now.
I'm guessing that the facility they broke into was a classified Arachnos Portal Facility and that they were caught - probably given the choice between joining the ranks of Arachnos or being terminated.
Can't blame ol' Stompy for choosing to live - and he is probably happier anyways, it never sat good with him that the Crey just abandoned him (the good old Crey this-must-be-a-rogue-employeee-we-disawow-all-knowledge routine) when he was caught and sent to The Zig. He always liked being part of their Tank division due to its strict military discipline and organization. It seems he is back in a military-style organization again - and probably loving every minute of it too.

Good for him.


Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

The Dark of the Year

The season of the Witch, or Halloween, is upon us yet again. Paragon City has declared a holiday of fun and tricks and merriment, and Lord Recluse in his attempt to appear as a benevolent ruler, has likewise declared that there will be merriment.

Not wanting to appear as disloyal inhabitants of this forge of violence and despair we call The Rogue Isles, my old gang-buddy Crock and I took to the streets - hauling a few of the new Cabal recruits along with us. But trick&treat takes on a whole new meaning when evil spirits, vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies lurk in every doorway - ready to assail the unwary pedestrian.

Unfortunately for them we were neither helpless nor unwary, and after having wiped the collected ichor of the so-called "elder races" from our metal-encased fists, we headed for St. Martial where contacts informed us that a giant monster in the shape of a Pumpkin Man was stalking the hillsides of The Hard Way district - surely this could be no coincidence?

We rounded up a few other villanious compadres and searched for the beast - an easy task as it was towering above St Martial and surrounded by a swirling sea of eerie spirits. I recognized him instantly from the Paragon Times articles about the Halloween Horror while I was enjoying the "hospitality" of The Zig - it was Eochai, the Pumpkin King!

Expecting that there might be a bounty for taking down such a threat to the Isles, and at the very least welcoming the prospect of violence and rending of flesh, we threw ourselves upon the strange monstrosity.
Need I say that even though eldritch magick might be strong and fine, it is no match for a relentless brute with superpowers and the very latest in cybernetic assault armour? Unfortunately his remains faded away - probably due to the magick being dispelled or some such thing - I was looking forward to adding it's head to our base trophy room; ah well - you can't have it all even when stealing with both arms and stepping on some poor sods face with your metallic hooves.

Once again Johnny Buzz has been able to access an Arachnos Security Feed for a still-picture of the event - always suspected it was smarter to employ that guy than to stomp him into the ground with the rest of his former Freak Show buddies when we busted their attempt to infiltrate the Cabal network.

Click for detailed Arachnos Surveillance Photo

It seems like only yesterday ...

One of the Seventh Cabal's hired hands - a hacker called Johnny Buzz, who once ran with the Freak Shows - entered the Arachnos surveillance system on my behest. More specifically, he entered the system of Fort Darwin, looking for the first recorded image of my presence on the Rogue Isles.

It seems like it was only yesterday - arriving at Fort Darwin in an Arachnos Flier after a very successful escape from The Zig - not only did I manage to escape, but I managed to deal with one of my old enemies Skullkracker (yes you guessed it - there already WAS a Bonedaddy named "Skullcracker") on the way out. He should have known better than to revel in his newfound freedom from the maximum security cells and have kept an eye on his surroundings ....

Mercy Isle - what a strange name for a place that has such a short supply of it - yet another evidence to the evil humour of Lord Recluse.
I remember stepping outside of Fort Darwin after Fortunata Kalinda had tasked me to prove my value to Arachnos by taking out a renegade Arachnos agent - looking at the burned out buildings, the squalor, the human misery - and thinking I would fit right in.

And how right i was .....

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